April 10, 2012

Almost a quarter of a century after the fact, these recordings of Daniel Burke on WZRD blow myself and probably most other freeform DJs out of the water. An incredibly important staple of the experimental/music scene of Chicago in the 80s, WZRD, broadcast from the decrepit and littered, cavernous bowels of Chicago's Northeastern University, represented pure unmiterated spirit. Burke, who has virtually been a kingpin of off kilter soundscapes since 1983, under the project name Illusion of Safety, not to mention also being a film maker, visual artist, photographer, pizza maker, and freestyle frisbee practitioner, does his job exceptionally well at the radio DJ console. These archives are rife with expeditiously shifting tectonic loops, apparently from his own personal rig; tertiary industrial totems often augmented with entropy, crime reports, and rare flash-in-the-pan underground relics from the cassette network of that time. Although he was anonymous simply as a "wizard", part of the station's traditional musk, Burke really made these radio shows his own. One notable aspect of WZRD programming also seems to be their penchant for designating the parameters of mandatory public service announcements very loosely, so rather than hearing about your average non-profit humane organization, which is all fine and good, we get to hear an articulate yet somewhat troglodytic Mr. Burke reading texts on the mysteries of sonic vibrations as dictated by Hafler Trio, or disseminating tragic information about the nuclear radiation that killedJohn Wayne and many others while filming in Nevada in the 70s. I promise to anyone who is interested in the evolutionary mnemonics of freeform radio, this is not to be missed. Many thanks to Dan for sharing!

Comments

it should really be mentioned that Thymme Jones of Cheer-Accident was a big part of many of these recordings. he was in studio B while I in studio A mixed it all, 4 or 5 sources each. those were the days